


you will break your promise

by karnsteins



Category: The Outsiders - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous Time Frame, Angst, Complicated Relationships, M/M, Threeshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26413042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karnsteins/pseuds/karnsteins
Summary: you are going to break your promise. i understand. and i hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that i will not hate you. (deathless, catherynne m. valente)or: ponyboy and dallas, and the reality of loving someone a little difficult.
Relationships: Ponyboy Curtis/Dallas Winston
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	1. i understand, and i hold my hands over the ears of my heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the moment the words fall out of his lips, ponyboy knows that this won't go well.

the moment the words fall out of his lips, ponyboy knows that this won't go well. the moment he says the words, he knows that something will ruin this. it's the nature of things, with dallas. in moments like this, when he's vulnerable, when he's tired, when he says those three words that ponyboy knew he wouldn't have said otherwise, he knows that this will not end well. he knows that in the next day or so, dallas will blow. he's going to do something like get arrested, he's going to do something like slash tim's tires, he's going to do something, anything to destroy this, to not have to admit his armor had a chink in it for one moment, that he really _did_ —

no don't even think it. don't even think it even if it's true. 

ponyboy wants to let it go. he wants to not feel surprised when whatever happens, happens. he knows dallas has always been a mean shit, he's always been hard to deal with any emotion that couldn't be expressed through the physical, whether it was busting a few ribs in a fight with tim or pinning ponyboy to the backseat of a car, dragging his mouth over his body, and doing any and everything they could to cum. he knows that there are moments of gentleness: when dallas rakes his fingers through pony's hair in the morning, when they lean on each other in the car, when they both laugh at something unexpected together. there are moments between them, that are just for them, admittances of comfort of, affection. he's the one, after all, who has dallas' ring, he's the one who's seen dallas asleep and at ease in his lap as sunrise spills out. 

but those are moments that ponyboy knows have always been private, moments that dallas gave him. they weren't to be dragged out, they weren't to be talked about. they were simply meant to happen, they were going to be understood between them and only them. 

hearing dallas say those three words though, when ponyboy has blood seeping out of him, when he's so injured that he's more worried about the cost of healing than anything else, when he wasn't supposed to say it something else. dallas is going to blow, he is going to mess this up. he's going to break any promise he has to pony to try and stay out of trouble, to keep his head down. 

and ponyboy, at the end of the day, will forgive him. he understands that dallas needs this, that dallas hasn't been given what he has, that dallas is hard and cold and whenever something like light seeps in, it's hard. but he'll be there, in the end. he won't try to change him, he won't demand it. if dallas can say it one day, without the need to blow up, without admitting that his armor had a weakness, that love itself wasn't a weakness, it will happen. 

or it won't. 

ponyboy can live with that, as long as dallas comes back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm in my deathless feelings, okay? as always comments, kudos, come yell at me on tumblr @traumapeaks.


	2. i am a demanding creature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the moment the words fall out of his lips, dallas wishes he could take them back, snatch them out of the air and keep them from ponyboy's ears.

the moment the words fall out of his lips, dallas wishes he could take them back, snatch them out of the air and keep them from ponyboy's ears. 

those words were never meant to be spoken, should have never been expected from either of them. ponyboy knew better to expect it from him, he'd known dallas most of his life, he'd always had the score when it came to dallas. and he knew -- dallas never wanted to give that power to anyone. it was a weakness to even tangle that word up in what they were: two bodies meeting each other in the backseat, intertwining in his bed at buck's, with him desperate to mark up ponyboy as much as he could and ponyboy always, always wanting. 

he wasn't sure when it had changed. when those moments afterwards in the morning had become more than just getting ponyboy out of the bed to get to school. when passing cigarettes between each other became an exchange of promises that he wouldn't have ever bothered to keep with anyone else. when-- when had he cared so much about what he thought? when he had decided that they were more than fucking in the backseat and fooling around together? when had he started to think--

every part of him was furious that all it took was a few bruises, some blood to unravel everything, to make him say this? how many times had he seen ponyboy bruised before? how many times had he seen ponyboy with blood on him? how many times before, and yet this _one time_ it was different. it was different, how could he have _said--_

his hands shake. his body feels like it can't keep a handle on his anger, that he can't keep himself together. he can't keep himself from walking away, from finding some hood as fucked up as him and going blow for blow. he can't keep himself from it, from the need to have blood in his mouth, from a need to try and punish himself for what he's said. 

the worst thing, when he's in the back of a fuzz's car, as the lights flash red and blue, is that when it's over, dally knows that he won't take it back. he won't fuck someone else, he won't track down sylvia or tim to make it final. he knows that at the end of it, he'll go back. dallas knows that he'll find his way back to ponyboy, no matter what happens. 

it makes the words true. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this became a threeshot! thanks abby for the comment! comments, kudos, come yell at me on tumblr @traumapeaks. third part will be up on tuesday


	3. for you alone i am weak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there are no sweet nothings. there are no promises to never do it again.

there are no sweet nothings. there are no promises to never do it again. 

there is them in the bed: torsos tangled together, legs splayed. a half healed set of bruises on ponyboy's face and a bandaid still on his nose, auburn hair ungreased and long. the sunlight makes the st. christopher's pendant gleam on his chest. dallas, knuckles half healed, arm wrapped around ponyboy's waist. his own eye is still yellow from the few nights before, and when he sleeps, there is so much less anger present on his face. it couldn't exactly be called peace, what's on his face. the sunlight turns his hair white, stark against the tangle he makes with ponyboy.

getting out of jail gave them no grand gestures. it gave them no way of pulling the words back from being spoken. there was no conversation in the car about it, no demands to be mad about it because both of them knew the score, they knew the price of saying it out loud, of pushing. 

in another life, maybe there could be sweet nothings. in another life there could be admissions. ponyboy could demand, and dallas could yield. dallas could let himself have this without feeling a need to make everything pay for having such a weakness, and ponyboy could feel as if he could take it without feeling that he was forcing dallas to change from the very person he was. 

those are those lives in softer, better worlds. 

in this world, dallas' fingers curve upward, hook themselves over ponyboy's shoulders. ponyboy sighs in his sleep, and both of them know that it will never be perfect. the words might never be spoken again, and if they are, there will always be a price to pay for it. 

it is enough that they will always come back together. it is enough that even if dallas will blow, even if ponyboy will forgive him, things won't be so broken that they cannot come back together. it will never end with dallas in someone else's bed or ponyboy demanding dallas change into someone he doesn't know, to be anything less than a selfish, demanding creature. 

it wasn't gentle, it wasn't easy. but it was them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for coming on this ride with me! comments, kudos, come yell at me on tumblr, i'm @traumapeaks.


End file.
